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This article presents the development of a new simulation activity, the Game of Social Life. The activity introduces students to concepts of social stratification based on multiple dimensions of poverty, including inequalities related to housing, education, occupational status, social power, and health outcomes. The game was administered to students enrolled in a social psychology course at a small, private, liberal arts university located in the midwestern United States.

In 2013 the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) initiated the Measuring College Learning (MCL) project because SSRC recognized a pressing need for greater clarity, intentionality, and quality in U.S. higher education.

In this study we explore how absence from sociology classes is understood by undergraduate students at University College Dublin. The authors use Scott and Lyman’s (1968) concept of accounts to explore absence sociologically. Drawing on data generated via focus groups, an open-ended questionnaire, and an online survey with students, we outline the different excuses and justifications for missing classes used by students and present their understanding of attendance at classes as an optional feature of student life.

This article argues that neoliberalism is a critical public issue influencing the apparently private troubles of college students and teachers. For example, earning a college degree has become ever more important for success; yet, because of declining state support for public education, students are taking on extraordinary levels of debt. As a result, learning is being pushed aside by vocational and other considerations that result from neoliberal policy imperatives.

Experiential and active learning exercises can benefit students in sociology courses, particularly, courses in which issues of inequality are central. In this paper, we describe using hunger banquets—an active learning exercise where participants are randomly stratified into three global classes and receive food based upon their class position—to enhance students’ knowledge of global hunger and inequality. The nonprofit Oxfam America has made hunger banquets popular, but they are usually large public events.

Twenty years ago, Pescosolido and Milkie (1995) reported that 50 percent of U.S. and Canadian sociology graduate programs offered formal teacher training. Despite pronouncements that offerings have increased substantially, no similarly thorough and direct investigation has been published since. In this time of dramatic change and increasing scrutiny of higher education, graduate teacher training is arguably more important than ever before. Thus, we seek to provide a new baseline of teacher training in the discipline. Using a 2013 survey of U.S.

A new study finds that behavioral problems in early childhood have a larger negative effect on high school and college completion rates for boys than girls, which partially explains the substantial gender gap in educational attainment that currently exists in the United States.

The American Sociological Association (ASA) applauds the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling today in the affirmative action case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. The judgement allows the university to continue using race as a factor in admissions decisions.